Blog Post

I am becom­ing more aware of fic­tion­al works, already pub­lished or in progress, that are based on sto­ries, past or present, his­tor­i­cal or imag­i­na­tive, that have to do with cryp­to Jews. These fall into three cat­e­gories: (1) those based on his­tor­i­cal fig­ures who once moved among us; (2) works with total­ly fic­tion­al char­ac­ters, cre­at­ed by the authors; and (3) auto­bi­o­graph­i­cal nov­els based on real peo­ple in one’s fam­i­ly or community.
This pletho­ra of lit­er­a­ture about those who have been forced to, or choose to, hide their reli­gious iden­ti­ties leads one to pon­der sev­er­al ques­tions. Should these works be eval­u­at­ed with the same lit­er­ary stan­dards applied to works with oth­er themes? Are there sen­si­tiv­i­ties and aware­ness­es that writ­ers need before tack­ling this sub­ject? This ques­tion is par­tic­u­lar­ly sen­si­tive in the case of works com­ing under cat­e­go­ry (3), above. Should we read auto­bi­og­ra­phy with more atten­tion to what we learn about the peo­ple and their chal­lenges than with efforts to exam­ine lit­er­ary qual­i­ty? In the case of cat­e­go­ry (2), above, are such authors “cul­ture vul­tures,” who exploit the top­ic like any oth­er because it makes good sto­ries, or does the work have redeem­ing social val­ue even so? In the case of cat­e­go­ry (1), is it all right to fill in the blanks about real peo­ple who once lived when facts on their real-life dra­mas are sparse? Even when these peo­ple have icon­ic his­tor­i­cal status?
Do you have some answers or some more ques­tions for us to ponder?